Anytime Booking customer Bosinver has just won the Family Friendly Accommodation of the Year category at the 2017 VisitEngland Awards hosted at the Hilton Waldorf Hotel in central London. We are delighted for them – this national award is such an achievement, and it is wonderful to have their efforts recognised in this way.

Owner Pat says, “We have previously won the top national award for self-catering, but ‘Family Friendly’ is a new category and it is particularly thrilling to win this award as families are at the heart of our business. We strive to combine luxurious accommodation and facilities for parents with the creation of magical childhood memories for children on our farm.”

The congratulations have been flooding in on social media from guests, many of whom have been holidaying with at Bosinver for years. Check out what a wonderful place to stay it really is at www.bosinver.co.uk.

What Bosinver says about Anytime Booking

“The quality of our booking system is an essential part of our success – it is one of the first experiences our guests have of us so it must be as ‘award winning’ as the other experiences we offer – which it is! We are proud to use a Cornish firm that is going from strength to strength and building and improving the service that offered to us. Thank you, Anytime, for helping us to win this prestigious award.”

How Anytime can help you

1 Install a Book Now button on your website, the most effective call to action there is

2 Share live availability with global third parties like Booking.com, Airbnb and Tripadvisor

3 Increase your visibility on the web to take advantage of the spike in staycations and short-breaks

Anytime Booking is a huge fan of TheGlamping Show (www.theglampingshow.com). Now in its second year, it is being held at Stoneleigh Park on 22nd-24th September and is poised to be bigger and better than last year. Glamping is steaming ahead as one of the fastest growing holiday market sectors in the UK and around the world; the UK slice is set to be worth 1.8 billion by 2017. It is refreshing to see a dedicated trade show for the industry when there is more demand than ever for expertise in one place to quench this insatiable thirst for all things glamping.

Register free to attend this amazing event! Find us on stand 136!

Make sure you don’t miss out – register here to get the very latest news, advice, equipment and gadgetry in the industry!

So why is glamping such a success?

Provenance and authentic experiences are more important to the holidaymaker than ever. Novel and nostalgic, glamping is the perfect soul-remedy for the pressures of modern life. The very spirit of being in the great outdoors, watching the sunlight stream through the trees, listening to crickets, enjoying a campfire and eating produce from the surrounding landscape is very much there, but all with a certain style.

Imagine the world slowing down. Exchange your orange squash for hand-pressed lemonade. Trade old tin saucepans for an enticing dutch oven swinging over a fire-pit. Swap your roll mats and sleeping bags for a kingsize bed with cotton sheets, torch light for fairy lights and damp zip-up canvas for majestic safari tent or a perfectly formed pod with ensuite. Having some luxuries around you doesn’t mean you are any less close to nature. And you might even find you enjoy it more.

Glamping sets a different kind of scene for holidays, weddings, hen and stag parties, birthday celebrations, reunions and festivals. Hotels and holiday chains are increasingly bringing glamping facilities into their offerings to enjoy a slice of the action. Haven Holidays, a mainstay of the family holiday in Britain, is a case in point – they have launched new holiday experiences in super-tents, yurts, geodomes and safari tents. The very message in a chain like Haven investing in glamping is that the future of this slice of the holiday market is secure and bright.

Make sure you know your guests

Glamping is the thoughtful end of the holiday market, where all the frills and spills have been thought about and lovingly provided. If you are a glampsite owner, or are seriously considering becoming one, this does put you under pressure to know your customers deeper though. Some customers want to feel the mud squelching between their toes, but they just don’t want to carry all their stuff with them, so it’s a choice of convenience. Others expect sheer luxury and if there is no fluffy robe hanging on the back of their ensuite door, they won’t be back. Know which end of the glamping market you’re going after and set the scene.

This end of the holiday market has really moved on in the past couple of years. You can no longer simply stick up a few unusually shaped tents and cross fingers that this will turn into a good little business. Glamping presents so many more accommodation choices now but it has also become much more than the physical structure you’re staying in, it’s about the holistic experience. As such, the high service level you provide, the little extras and the adventure need to be reflected in the holiday proposition from outset to finish. You need to tell a story that in effect then sells itself.

Look to technology to keep you ahead

If you are a holiday business of any kind, the actual technology does not need to be a barrier to your visibility on the web. We recommend that the hub of any successful glampsite should be a well designed website with flawless photography and a flexible online booking management system plugged into it. Entice your customers in from the very beginning, show them what’s different about you, and make it easy for them to book a holiday online with you.

This is where Anytime Booking can step in to help you manage your business while enhancing your customer service and, in turn, your guest experience.

Our system will drive direct bookings to your website and link with the OTAs (online travel agents) of your choice to increase your occupancy and revenue. We can help you delve deeper to manage the relationships you have with your customers. The powerful CRM enables you to retain all the information you need about your customers to communicate with them time and again.

We also support all the aspects of a busy reception desk, including taking payments. For complete ease, you can even use our own payment gateway, Anytime Payments, which talks to your existing merchant provider.

So come and find us at The Glamping Show on stand 136, we love to talk!

We will show you how Anytime Booking’s powerful functionality and flexibility will help you manage and grow your flourishing glamping business.

It’s more pertinent than ever to get ahead because according to VisitEngland, TripAdvisor and just about any travel expert going, the glamping phenomenon is no longer a trend, it is a bona fide holiday choice, it’s getting competitive out there and it’s here to stay. Have a happy Show!

Anytime Booking loves to support all things camping, so if you run a holiday park, glampsite or campsite, we can now give your customers another avenue through which to find their dream outdoor holiday with you by teaming up with the amazing Caravan Sitefinder.

Caravan Sitefinder is an online travel agent (OTA) based in Edinburgh that allows holidaymakers to search over 3,600 campsites, caravan parks and holiday parks around the UK. They are a huge, powerful resource to tap into. It’s simple really. Guests are searching their site to book their holiday, so it’s a good idea to make sure that they find you quickly and easily.

What does this mean for Anytime Booking customers?

· You can easily increase your visibility in the touring, caravanning and camping markets

If you are a current customer and want to be an early adopter of this exciting new offering, give us a bell so that we can give you more information to help you decide if you want to connect to this sales channel.

If you are new to us and want to sign up to Anytime Booking in order to take bookings through your website and via Caravan Sitefinder or any of our other channels, such as Pitchup, Tripadvisor or Rentals United, please contact us on support@anytimebooking.co.uk.